| Roger Ebert Movie Review |
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Star Trek / **1/2 (PG-13)
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"Star Trek" (PG-13, 126 minutes). Using the device of time travel, the new movie reboots the original franchise with younger characters and actors, as we meet Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhuru and Bones in their younger days. Lacks the twists and challenges of classic Star Trek, and is essentially a space opera, with young Kirk (Chris Pine) battling a Romulan super ship from the future. Leonard Nimoy is very effective as an elder Spock, who is, paradoxically, a Vulcan who seems the most human of the characters. Two and a half stars.
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Next Day Air / *** (R)
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"Next Day Air" (R, 90 minutes). Bloody screwball comedy about possibly the world's most inept bank robbers along with its most inept delivery man and most imprudent druglord. With Donald Faison, Mike Epps, Wood Harris and Mof Def. Funny. Three stars
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Little Ashes / *** (R)
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"Little Ashes" (R, 112 minutes). In a student residence in Madrid, 1922, three of the great artists of the Spanish century are young men finding themselves: the poet Garcia Lorca, the artist Salvador Dalí, the filmmaker Luis Bunuel. Lorca and Dalí are attracted romantically, but don't fulfill their feelings, and in a few years set course on widely different paths in life. Told against the formation of Surrealism in response to fascist Spain. Three stars.
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The Limits of Control / 1/2 (R)
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"The Limits of Control" (R, 116 minutes). An empty and pointless exercise in style, draining from the viewer such energy that the visitor sinks slowly in ennui. Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. One and a half stars.
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The Perfect Sleep / *1/2 (R)
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"The Perfect Sleep" (R, 105 minutes). An unnamed man returns to an unnamed city after ten years and is caught again in a web of violence, intrigue, revenge and retribution, in a great-looking film noir that makes almost no sense at all. It's all style, and no plot we can hold onto. Written by and starring Anton Pardoe, plus Roselyn Sanchez, Patrick Bauchau, Peter J. Lucas and Tony Amendola. One and a half stars.
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine / ** (PG-13)
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"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (PG-13, 107 minutes). Since the modern Wolverine has amnesia, and at the end of this film he forgets everything in it, who cares about his origins? A monotonous, shallow and inarticulate character, used as a story device linking pointless action scenes. None of the charisma of the great superheroes. Two stars.
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The Merry Gentleman / ***1/2 (R)
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"The Merry Gentleman" (R, 99 minutes). In his directing debut, Michael Keaton plays a suicidal hit man, Kelly Macdonald is the woman whose scream saved his life, and Tom Bastounes is the recovering alcoholic cop on the case. But this is nothing so simple as a crime story, and the focus is on a worthwhile woman trying to relate to two difficult puppies left on her doorstep. Moving in ways that are far from expected. Three and a half stars.
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Tyson / **** (R)
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"Tyson" (R, 90 minutes). Mike Tyson does a remarkable job of explaining and justifying a life which earnest him a fearsome reputation. From a childhood beating by bullies to recent years of rehab and sobriety, he confesses, defends, denies, and reveals. Directed by James Toback. Three and a half stars.
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Battle for Terra / *** (PG-13)
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"Battle for Terra" (PG, 85 minutes). Aliens attack Terra. But the alien are humans, and Terra is a peaceful planet inhabited by cute tadpole-like creatures with features of mermaids and seahorses. An imaginative animated sci-fi fantasy, with an excellent voice cast, although must everything be resolved in a big battle scene? The 3-D adds nothing; find it in 2-D if you can. Three stars.
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Nothing But the Truth / ***1/2 (R)
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"Nothing But the Truth" (R, 108 minutes). Intelligent and effective film inspired by the Valerie Plame case, pitting against each other the cases for journalistic confidentiality and national security. Powerful performances by Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga, Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, Angela Basset, David Schwimmer. Credible suspense, and an ending which, while a surprise, is convincing and not a cheat. Written and directed by Rod Lurie ("Contender"). Three and a half stars.
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Sita Sings the Blues / **** (No MPAA rating)
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"Sita Sings the Blues" (Unrated, 82 minutes). An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana, set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, with a parallel plot about a modern San Francisco woman betrayed by her husband, and an hilarious narration by three modern Indians. Enchanting and astonishingly original. Directed, written, animated by Nina Paley. One of the year's best films. Four stars
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Lymelife / ***1/2 (R)
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"Lymelife" (R, 95 minutes). A first-rate cast in a film about troubled families and confused teenagers on Long Island in the 1970s. Two neighboring families have parents who are cheating with each other, and kids falling uncertainly into love. Tender, sometimes bleakly comic. With Rory Culkin, Emma Roberts, Adam Baldwin, Jill Hennessy, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon, Kieran Culkin. Three and a half stars.
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Is Anybody There? / **1/2 (PG-13)
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"Is Anybody There?" (PG-123, 92 minutes). Michael Caine is superb as the Amazing Clarence, a retired magician who checks into an old folks' home and slowly makes friends with Edward (Bill Milner), the owners' 10-year-old son. The rest of the film unfortunately isn't up to their level; it's clunk and sitcomish, but Caine is almost worth the price of admission. Two and a half stars
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Ghosts of Girlfriends Past / ** (PG-13)
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"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (PG-13, 100 minutes) Matthew McConaughey plays a famous lecher who turns up as his kid brother's wedding to discourage it and advocate a life of promiscuity. But the ghost of his late Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas) arrives as a spirit guide to take him on a tour of girlfriends past, present and future. Some funny lines and a warm performance by Jennifer Garner, but the hero is far from sympathetic. Two and a half stars.
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Great Movie: Thief of Bagdad (1940)
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by Roger Ebert
To begin with a story: Our grandson Taylor was deeply immersed in a video game on his laptop. I began to watch "The Thief of Bagdad" on DVD. At first he ignored it. Then I saw him glancing at the screen. Then he closed the laptop and watched full time. During the spider sequence, only his eyes were visible above the neck of his T-shirt. "That was a good movie!" he told me. "What did Taylor say when he found out it was almost 70 years old?" his mother, Sonia, asked me. "I didn't tell him," I said.
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Movie Answer Man: "It's not the men in my life --
it's the life in my men"
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Q. I recently read an article in the paper that attributed the following quote to Jean Harlow: "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" My sister says this is an exact quote from a movie and she thinks Mae West said it, but we couldn't find anything on the Internet. Do you know the quote, who said it for sure and what movie this comes from? (Janice Moore, Arlington Heights, IL)
A. It was indeed the very same woman who said, "Beulah, peel me a grape." Mae West first uttered the immortal pistol line in "She Done Him Wrong" (1933). Her double entendres helped inspire movie censorship, of which she said: "I believe in it. I made a fortune out of it." She got away with saying incredible things in general-audience movies. For example, "A hard man is good to find." "Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." "The only good woman I can recall in history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag."
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People: Toback's "Tyson": Iron Mike, the
short, fat, pushed-around little kid
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by Roger Ebert
Mike Tyson is philosophical. Thoughtful. Self-critical. Vulnerable. There are times when you feel sympathy for the Baddest Man on the Planet. There are times when you...like him.
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People: Toback on life, death, Tyson
and his own personal hit list
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By James Toback
Lightly edited transcript of James Toback in conversation with Ebert on April 27, 2009.
¶
Age is not a friend to health. I’ve got radical diabetes and my arteries are getting screwed up and I just keep thinking, I still feel as if I was 12 years old, what’s happening? It’s because I haven’t matured at all. My grandfather, when he was in his late 80s and 90s, started getting confused. "I’d say, how old are you?" He would say, "72." "No, guess again." "64?" "No." And finally he’d get so low, I’d say, "Gramp, you’re much older than that." He’d say, "how old?" And I’d say "95" and he’d say, that’s not possible. He'd say, "seems like only yesterday I was 4. And he would flashback to the winter of 1888 when he woke up and the snow was over the top of the window and he remembered it still, through this haze of senility when nothing else registered. He didn’t know what city he was in but he remembered that, so he still would think four-years-old was just yesterday.
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